


The Dark Before the Dawn

by Rioghna



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rumbelle Showdown 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3803785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rioghna/pseuds/Rioghna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My second round story from the RumBelle Showdown, and, as it turned out, my last.  But it was fun.  The prompts were childhood, dawn and role reversal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark Before the Dawn

"Rumplestiltskin," she said sharply. He stopped immediately, his body going completely still, but he didn't turn around. "Won't you talk to me, please? You can't keep this up and neither can I. I'm worried about you."

"I can't," he said. He didn't turn, but he made no move to return to the wheel either. "Belle, you have no idea..."

"Then tell me," she cried. "I want to understand, and without you somehow finding a way to put me inside your memories, I can't. But I can listen. Do you know what it's like, to love someone and feel them growing away from you, falling away into an abyss and you don't know what it is?" Her voice had risen, and tears were starting to trace their way down her face when he turned. 

"I...Belle, I'm a broken monster, even more than I was before. If I were a better man I would..."

"Don't you dare say it, Rumplestiltskin. I am not leaving you, not now, not ever. Not after everything we have done to get here. But you can't keep locking me out either. How would you feel if our roles were reversed? If I wasn't telling you what it was that was keeping me away from you?" 

Belle watched as his shoulders slumped and he seemed to fold in on himself. It was time, she just had to make him understand. Slowly she walked up behind him and slipped an arm around his waist. "Come on, Rumple. What are you afraid of?" 

"Of losing you, of having you look at me the same way that other people do. I have lost everyone, everything that I have ever loved. If I tell you what..." Rumplestiltskin struggled to find the words, to make her understand what being under Zelena's control had done to him, how much it had damaged the carefully constructed walls that he had built around the part of him that held those bits of the curse that was not him, the darker impulses he had tried to so hard to escape when he had found her again and started to have hope for a future. Now he was too afraid, not certain how to face it, or her. 

"Nothing you tell me will ever make me look at you any differently than I do now. I know that faith doesn't come easy to you, but after all we have been through together, I would have thought you trusted me," she said, allowing a slight note of disappointment to colour her words. 

"I do trust you. It's myself I don't trust. I'm not particularly trustworthy." Rumple's lips twisted in what could only vaguely be considered a smile. "I spent my childhood as the son of the town coward. I always wanted to prove that I was nothing like him, but the truth is, I am. I'm a coward and always have been, and if I tell you...you won't be able to look at me anymore. I am made of darkness, and it poisons everything."

"You aren't a coward, or a villain, or a monster. Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see the man I love, and nothing you tell me is ever going to change that. Now, let me make us some tea, and we can talk. I promise that no matter what, I won't stop loving you. I promised you forever, and that's what you are going to get. You aren't getting away that easily," Belle said, leaning her head against his shoulder, and praying that he couldn't see the pain in her face. She knew, had always known, exactly how deeply the pain and the darkness had carved their way into him. Before Zelena, they were starting to dig their way out from that, but now...

"Are you...sure?" Rumplestiltskin said. There was something in his voice, a hint of fear, but also of hope. In that moment she knew she had won.

She took a deep breath, let his familiar scent wrap around her. How she had missed that, the comforting smell of him. When he was in Neverland, she had moved back into his house, slept in the bed they had shared, just to fill her senses with him. After losing him, she had feared that she would forget it all, his face, his feel, his smell. She shook her head. They would get through this, she had to have faith in that, in them. One step at a time. "Come on, let me make some tea. Stories all go best with tea," she said, nudging him toward the kitchen. 

The tea was long drunk and the words had run dry. Talking had been difficult, and there were times when, as a man of words, he found that they utterly failed him. But she was beside him every moment, listening without the fear or disgust he had so long ago learned to expect. As the night wound to a close and the kitchen began to lighten, Belle took his hand and pulled him out onto the back porch of the beautiful pink house. Dawn was coming, the first faint rays appearing over the trees in the back garden. They sat together on the rattan sofa, arms around one another as if afraid to let go. It had been a long night and not an easy one, but it was over. 

"See, the sun is coming up, a new day," she said as she dropped her tired head against his shoulder. But Rumplestiltskin didn't answer. As she looked up into his face, she saw that he was already asleep, a peaceful sleep the likes of which she couldn't remember him enjoying since his return. It wasn't perfect, and it was only the beginning, but true love was worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy. This is actually not the story I started out to write, that story was much darker, but it wouldn't fit in the space limit. Please read, comment all those lovely things. And to those who voted for it, thanks.


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